I grew up in a world of gods and angels, demons and the
immortal damned. A world where magic was an everyday thing. Where
the miraculous was mundane and the mundane was to be avoided at all
costs. The walls had eyes and the very air had ears. Vengeful little
pixies could peer deep into your thoughts and condemn you to any
number of misfortunes if they didn't like what they saw. Immortals
walked the streets trying to spread enlightenment while evil spirits
lurked in the bar rooms and brothels trying to distract you from the
path of goodness and light. Even the most seemingly innocuous little
waifs encountered innocently along the way might turn on you and drag
you down into the pits of damnation the moment you relaxed your guard.

I was raised, to put it in other words, as a Christian.
Though to speak of Christian things in terms such as the above would
have seemed absurd at the time, it is nonetheless precisely the world
as drilled into me by my very Christian family.

I was raised to feel so constantly un-alone. God watched me
wherever I went, angels traveled beside me as the souls of those who
went before watched on from their heavenly perch, either nodding and
smiling in approval or shaking their heads with dismay as I lived on
in the manner of so many youths. The feeling of always being watched
has at times been comforting, at others terrifying.

Then I found the world as I know it today. There are no gods,
there is no magic. Nothing watches me when I am alone. There is only
the cold, unflinching world, and now when I am alone, I am truly
alone.

.when I am.
.alone.
.when.
.I am alone.

I am alone.

I live without these things, now. The minions of darkness
have fled the world, their existential hands bound by the light of
knowledge. And yet. it's as if some metaphysical "place-holder" has
been built for them in my mind. Like whenever I'm not thinking about
the world directly, I can still see all of those things - the gods and
the devils, the angels and the demons - from the corner of my mind's
eye. When not thinking about it, I still behave as though I believed
in some vengeful pixie in some eternal netherworld judging my every
thought.

In letting go of a mystical past, the world around me began
taking on mythical properties all its own. My notions of "God"
dissolved and faded, bleeding slowly into my notions of "government".
My notions of "angels" dissolved and turned into my notions of "the
kindness of strangers". The "soul" became "the mind" as "the Devil"
became my own shadowed and hidden self. Finally, as though in
response to the perceived absence of the souls of my loved ones, my
memories began coming to life. They vibrated and they shook, they
clattered and they spun about. As my ghosts became memories, my
memories became ghosts - more haunting by far than any supernal
spectre could ever hope to be. It's as if the whole mythology I'd
been raised with just picked itself up by the roots from fantasy and
plopped itself smack dab in the middle of my godless world without me
ever once becoming suspicious of it.

Time taught me eventually that neither God nor the government
can be trusted. My illusions of "government" as some new god have
thus with time faded. And now, now that my trust, my childlike faith.
Now all that has disolved once again, and I find there is nothing left
for that faith to again bleed into. No new "thing" to take the
once-esteemed place held first by God, then by government. The faith,
it's just "gone". It - my entire ability to trust - it just seeps
away from my psyche like the bleeding of a slow wound that will not
heal.

Sometimes I wish I could go back. To be a believer was the
easiest thing in the world. To let the church and its assorted
prophets do your thinking for you - compared to life without gods and
devils, the world of magic offered one an existence one could just
float through thoughtlessly - even _with_ the necessary martyr
complexes in place.

But I made a choice. I ate of the fruit of the Tree of
Knowledge, and my eyes can never grow closed again. I watched the
world of magic fade away and disappear into the darkness and mist. It
was painful, it hurt. Truly I tell you know, there can be no more
bitter Hell, and yet.

And yet I have eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.
Not only does it kick you out of Heaven, it leaves you thirsting for
more - a thirst you can never quench.

At least, not if you're lucky. ;-)

I grew up in a world of gods and angels, demons and the
immortal damned. A world where magic was an everyday thing. Where
the miraculous was mundane and the mundane was to be avoided at all
costs. The walls had eyes and the very air had ears. Vengeful little
pixies could peer deep into your thoughts and condemn you to any
number of misfortunes if they didn't like what they saw. Immortals
walked the streets trying to spread enlightenment while evil spirits
lurked in the bar rooms and brothels trying to distract you from the
path of goodness and light. Even the most seemingly innocuous little
waifs encountered innocently along the way might turn on you and drag
you down into the pits of damnation the moment you relaxed your guard.

I was raised, to put it in other words, as a Christian.
Though to speak of Christian things in terms such as the above would
have seemed absurd at the time, it is nonetheless precisely the world
as drilled into me by my very Christian family.
I was raised to feel so constantly un-alone. God watched me
wherever I went, angels traveled beside me as the souls of those who
went before watched on from their heavenly perch, either nodding and
smiling in approval or shaking their heads with dismay as I lived on
in the manner of so many youths. The feeling of always being watched
has at times been comforting, at others terrifying.

Then I found the world as I know it today. There are no gods,
there is no magic. Nothing watches me when I am alone. There is only
the cold, unflinching world, and now when I am alone, I am truly
alone.
.when I am.
.alone.
.when.
.I am alone.
I am alone.
I live without these things, now. The minions of darkness
have fled the world, their existential hands bound by the light of
knowledge. And yet. it's as if some metaphysical "place-holder" has
been built for them in my mind. Like whenever I'm not thinking about
the world directly, I can still see all of those things - the gods and
the devils, the angels and the demons - from the corner of my mind's
eye. When not thinking about it, I still behave as though I believed
in some vengeful pixie in some eternal netherworld judging my every
thought.

In letting go of a mystical past, the world around me began
taking on mythical properties all its own. My notions of "God"
dissolved and faded, bleeding slowly into my notions of "government".
My notions of "angels" dissolved and turned into my notions of "the
kindness of strangers". The "soul" became "the mind" as "the Devil"
became my own shadowed and hidden self. Finally, as though in
response to the perceived absence of the souls of my loved ones, my
memories began coming to life. They vibrated and they shook, they
clattered and they spun about. As my ghosts became memories, my
memories became ghosts - more haunting by far than any supernal
spectre could ever hope to be. It's as if the whole mythology I'd
been raised with just picked itself up by the roots from fantasy and
plopped itself smack dab in the middle of my godless world without me
ever once becoming suspicious of it.
Time taught me eventually that neither God nor the government
can be trusted. My illusions of "government" as some new god have
thus with time faded. And now, now that my trust, my childlike faith.
Now all that has disolved once again, and I find there is nothing left
for that faith to again bleed into. No new "thing" to take the
once-esteemed place held first by God, then by government. The faith,
it's just "gone". It - my entire ability to trust - it just seeps
away from my psyche like the bleeding of a slow wound that will not
heal.

Sometimes I wish I could go back. To be a believer was the
easiest thing in the world. To let the church and its assorted
prophets do your thinking for you - compared to life without gods and
devils, the world of magic offered one an existence one could just
float through thoughtlessly - even _with_ the necessary martyr
complexes in place.

But I made a choice. I ate of the fruit of the Tree of
Knowledge, and my eyes can never grow closed again. I watched the
world of magic fade away and disappear into the darkness and mist. It
was painful, it hurt. Truly I tell you know, there can be no more
bitter Hell, and yet.

And yet I have eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.
Not only does it kick you out of Heaven, it leaves you thirsting for
more - a thirst you can never quench.
At least, not if you're lucky. ;-)

I grew up in a world of gods and angels, demons and the
immortal damned. A world where magic was an everyday thing. Where
the miraculous was mundane and the mundane was to be avoided at all
costs. The walls had eyes and the very air had ears. Vengeful little
pixies could peer deep into your thoughts and condemn you to any
number of misfortunes if they didn't like what they saw. Immortals
walked the streets trying to spread enlightenment while evil spirits
lurked in the bar rooms and brothels trying to distract you from the
path of goodness and light. Even the most seemingly innocuous little
waifs encountered innocently along the way might turn on you and drag
you down into the pits of damnation the moment you relaxed your guard.

I was raised, to put it in other words, as a Christian.
Though to speak of Christian things in terms such as the above would
have seemed absurd at the time, it is nonetheless precisely the world
as drilled into me by my very Christian family.

I was raised to feel so constantly un-alone. God watched me
wherever I went, angels traveled beside me as the souls of those who
went before watched on from their heavenly perch, either nodding and
smiling in approval or shaking their heads with dismay as I lived on
in the manner of so many youths. The feeling of always being watched
has at times been comforting, at others terrifying.

Then I found the world as I know it today. There are no gods,
there is no magic. Nothing watches me when I am alone. There is only
the cold, unflinching world, and now when I am alone, I am truly
alone.

...when I am...
...alone...
...when...
...I am alone.

I am alone.

I live without these things, now. The minions of darkness
have fled the world, their existential hands bound by the light of
knowledge. And yet... it's as if some metaphysical "place-holder" has
been built for them in my mind. Like whenever I'm not thinking about
the world directly, I can still see all of those things - the gods and
the devils, the angels and the demons - from the corner of my mind's
eye. When not thinking about it, I still behave as though I believed
in some vengeful pixie in some eternal netherworld judging my every
thought.

In letting go of a mystical past, the world around me began
taking on mythical properties all its own. My notions of "God"
dissolved and faded, bleeding slowly into my notions of "government".
My notions of "angels" dissolved and turned into my notions of "the
kindness of strangers". The "soul" became "the mind" as "the Devil"
became my own shadowed and hidden self. Finally, as though in
response to the perceived absence of the souls of my loved ones, my
memories began coming to life. They vibrated and they shook, they
clattered and they spun about. As my ghosts became memories, my
memories became ghosts - more haunting by far than any supernal
spectre could ever hope to be. It's as if the whole mythology I'd
been raised with just picked itself up by the roots from fantasy and
plopped itself smack dab in the middle of my godless world without me
ever once becoming suspicious of it.

Time taught me eventually that neither God nor the government
can be trusted. My illusions of "government" as some new god have
thus with time faded. And now, now that my trust, my childlike faith...
Now all that has disolved once again, and I find there is nothing left
for that faith to again bleed into. No new "thing" to take the
once-esteemed place held first by God, then by government... The faith,
it's just "gone". It - my entire ability to trust - it just seeps
away from my psyche like the bleeding of a slow wound that will not
heal.

Sometimes I wish I could go back. To be a believer was the
easiest thing in the world. To let the church and its assorted
prophets do your thinking for you - compared to life without gods and
devils, the world of magic offered one an existence one could just
float through thoughtlessly - even _with_ the necessary martyr
complexes in place.

But I made a choice. I ate of the fruit of the Tree of
Knowledge, and my eyes can never grow closed again. I watched the
world of magic fade away and disappear into the darkness and mist. It
was painful, it hurt. Truly I tell you know, there can be no more
bitter Hell, and yet...

And yet I have eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.
Not only does it kick you out of Heaven, it leaves you thirsting for
more - a thirst you can never quench.

At least, not if you're lucky. ;-)